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Primo Levi Was No Saint — But We Already Knew That

JL;DR SUMMARY Primo Levi, a renowned survivor of Auschwitz and acclaimed author, is the subject of historical debate after the publication of Sergio Luzzatto's book 'Partigia: Italian Partisans.' A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

Auschwitz  World War Ii  Moral Complexity  Partisans  Historical Revisionism  Primo Levi  Italian Resistance  Intellectual Honesty  Sergio Luzzatto  The Periodic Table 

Places mentioned

Italy
"Since early summer, a heat wave of controversy concerning Levi has settled over the Italian media, provoked by the publication of a new book."
Houston, Texas, United States
"Robert Zaretsky is a professor of history at The Honors College at the University of Houston and is the author of the forthcoming A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus and the Quest for Meaning (Harvard University Press)."

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Cairo Item ID 59339
Cairo Source ID 35
Retrieved 2025-08-15 05:32:13 UTC
Curated 2025-08-15 08:31:36 UTC